The Daily Beast ran a detailed piece in which they recount a time when Putin chose to hang out with the French actor Gerard Depardieu, instead of being with his wife for her birthday.

"This is the striking thing about Putin," Geraldine Fagan, the author of Believing in Russia, told The Daily Beast. "For some reason, he prefers to spend Christmas in some small provincial church and not to be around his wife on her birthday."

The AP reports that Putina was asked why she was so absent from the public eye while her husband was president.

"I don't like publicity and flying is difficult for me," she said, according to the AP.